For the life of me, I could never understand why some expats only hang out with their likes when living in a foreign country. It was simply beyond my reach. Why come to the other side of the world to eat the same food, listen to the same music, with the same people, in the same setting, etc.? But alas, one night, for one moment, the feeling arrived. It didn’t stay for long, but it left an indelible impression on me. It’s priceless.

1. “I’m still with the hostess…i’m crazy about her…she is so beautiful…what are you doing?”

2. “I have to tell you about her….she is wildddddddddd…luckily she has a boyfriend.”

I’ve told some of you about the time when I went to a friend’s office for lunch. Her manager joined us and, as we sat down and I shoveled the first grain of rice into my mouth, he asked me, “What would you do if we attacked Taiwan?”. All this before a “hello”. “We’d crush you!!!”, naturally, was my response. He was perplexed. He couldn’t understand why I, the guy with no special executive or legislative powers sitting across from him, would command the world’s most powerful military to attack them.

And whenever something Japanese related comes up, you can see their yellow skin turn red with anger - “You know we hate the Japanese, right?”, the response so common that it must be taught in schools. It’s fun to see them all worked up, but mostly it’s annoying because their is a conspicuous absence of logic in their ideas. On Thursday, I sat down for a bowl of noodles during lunchtime. The guy sitting next to me started chatting and said he worked for a computer game company. He said there are a lot of gaming companies in the States. I said I wasn’t too familiar with the industry, but yeah, probably the States and Japan have the most. “You know I hate Japan, right?”. Look at that hate. Your noodles are getting cold, bro!

I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I cut him off. “Look, I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be eating ramen right now and saying ‘konichiwa’.” I caught him off guard, but he wasn’t gonna retreat that easily. After all, this was a chance for us to alter Asia-Pacific policy. “What do you think of Taiwan?”.

Check please.

One of the biggest discussions is surrounding Jamaica’s dominance in sprinting this year. The Chinese are completely baffled by it. They can’t get their head around it, so they resort to the race issue, pondering whether the Jamaicans are “racially superior” than the rest of us. When someone brings up that, until now, the Americans dominated sprinting, someone else pops in with, “but they are likely from the same ancestors” (i.e. black people). Sigh*. Then they bring up the argument for fast twitch muscles in the legs of Jamaicans. I just wonder if the Chinese have fast twitch muscles in their arms that make them so dominate in ping pong? And what about the white guy (also a 2004 Gold medalist)  who came in second in the 400m last night? And how about those white Belgium women who finished first in one of the 4×100 relay heats last night? Must be something in the chocolate.

Maybe the biggest issue is about the manufacturing of athletes by the Chinese government and whether or not it’s good for the athletes and sports in general. I can think of one reason they are talking about this - a lot of the athletes, after winning gold, are interviewed, and can barely speak. No emotion. Just “yes”, “it’s not bad”, and that’s all. They look petrified, and that’s after winning the gold. Dronified. Anyway, some of the Chinese seem to think that in all countries, the athletes are “selected by body type” and then sent away to camps like they are here. In an interview with Dominique Dawes (’96 USA Gold medal gymnast), a reporter was baffled when she said she “chose” to become a gymnast. “You chose?”.

Then they pondered whether or not they should “quit” playing soccer because they haven’t won. The Brit being interviewed gave the best response available: “to even ask that question, shows the problem. You don’t play sports to win, you play to participate. If only the winners played, there would only be three or four countries playing soccer. I’m from England, we haven’t won anything since ‘67, but it’s the most popular sport in our country.”

And in typical Chinese spin fashion, they had to say, “If it weren’t for Michael Phelps, this Olympics would be a disaster for the United States.” All I’ve got to say is this: As I write this, the United States has won 99 medals, the most of any country competing.

Henry Cejudo, Olympic freestyle 55-kilogram wrestling Gold medalist

China: I can’t make this shit up

A couple of examples.

Here Zohan tells his parents that he would like to quit his career in the military and move to the States to style hair. “Cut hair” in Chinese is “Jian toufa”. The subtitle reads, “I would like to jian toufa”. Classic.

Sandler makes it to NYC and meets a guy who helps him find an apartment. He invites Zohan to dinner, then Zohan has sex with his Mother. The guy walks in on them. When finished, the Mother says, “I can’t get up”. “Can’t get up” in Chinese is “qi bu lai”. The subtitle reads, “I had qi bu lai”. Yet another classic.

“Putin’s is a new and subtler game…to deal with him will require statecraft of a kind that has proved well beyond the capacities of our current practitioners.”

Right, not because of his training or talent….

Can they, just once, not take credit for something?

I think the appropriate response to this assertion is either:

Water is water no matter what building it is housed in

or

Australians designed the “Water Cube”, not Chinese.

To which their response would be:

“But the water is Chinese and our migrant workers built it.”

To which I would say

“That water was made clean by GE technology. Okay, the migrant workers did build it. Let’s give them one of Phelps’ gold medals. Wait, where are they? Oh, they’ve all been kicked out of Beijing.”

Me: Do you have a religion?

Her: No, but in my heart I have many strong beliefs.

Me: For example?

Her: The Olympics.

mei banfa

*Well, I think I do, but I hope I’m wrong.

Our table seats four people. I am seated next to the wall. We’re halfway through the meal. Hair in the vegetables. Mei banfa. We’re almost finished, the DJ alerts me to three roaches climbing on the wall next to me. I call the waitress over and say, “Look, roaches.” Her response?

A big smile and “Don’t worry, they don’t bite”.

Mei banfa.

No effort to kill them, to offer us a new table, to offer an apology, to comp our meal, to even show a shred of regret or embarrassment.

Instead, she makes me seem to be the one out of place. My Chinese counterparts tried to calm me down, because they said if I yell at her nothing will happen. If I say nothing, nothing will happen. So I should save my energy. What recourse do we have then? “We’ll never come here again!!”, they said. That’s funny, I thought, because every place we go, we end up saying that.

Mei banfa.

So…
We’re at dinner on Saturday night when the DJ tells the waitress we are from Beijing and don’t know where to go after dinner for fun. This is a tried and tested method. Last time we used it, we found ourselves in a taxi with two hookers. The waitress kinda panics and tells us to wait a second. She gets the hostess, who tells us a few places and then proceeds to give us her personal cell phone number. Gotta love hospitality like that. We finish up, go for a walk, and send the girl a message. She calls us and agrees to meet. We bet on what she will wear and whether or not she will be alone. The DJ wins - she is in shorts and a T, no purse, and with a friend.

Let the lying/learning begin.

We are motorcycle daredevils (best lie ever. Credit the DJ). The DJ is a famous Canadian who retired after an accident that left him with a life threatening concussion. Now he is my coach. I got in an accident last week and my knee is aching me. We hate Americans, French, and Italians. Americans are arrogant, the French food is delicious but the portions too small, and Italians because they are too romantic. We left Beijing because Bush arrived there and we didn’t want to be in the same city as him. We became Chinese citizens because of our sport expertise, but the Chinese government made us sign an “cultural assimilation contract” that had us agreeing to marry a Chinese girl within the next three years. We told them Canada has it’s own language, and I spoke a little bit of it - “ahlkdfjl”. My brother was killed by a Frenchman and the DJ pops in with the Olympic slogan, “One World. One Dream.” Classic.

Those were the highlights I could remember. You can imagine how useful this lesson was. You can also imagine what they think of Canadians.

me feeling Clooney
a big bottle of Martini
the 100 year Chinese dream that makes them look like procrastinators
wanting to import Chinese flag smacking to America
Putin never smiling

French as the official language of the opening games

the blind girl playing the piano….was not playing the piano
the torch lighter and his knock off Nike brand
missing American women
offending someone because I said I like China because I can learn how to be mean to people here
wondering why the DPRK got a bigger cheer than the S. Koreans

and a bunch of other fantastic observations, which were all deleted.

And it’s over….wait, wait, wait….the prize for best power pose goes to…Putin….Putin arrives late, when everyone else is finished. It was like his way of saying, “I’m not waiting in line for you”. It was classic. And he isn’t even president anymore. Then…

Everyone walks up the stairs to the Great Hall for a banquet style lunch. In the beginning, Bush is in the middle of the crowd. But a guy is trying to get him toward the front. Is he going to be photographed walking BEHIND the Chinese President? No…the Chinese moved him next to Hu. Putin? Of course he was already in the front. They were all seated at the table…it appeared to be Russia, China, US, Japan, and some small countries represented at the main table. Kevin Rudd, Australia’s fluent mandarin speaking PM, sat next to Chinese PM Wen Jiabao….but he had an interpreter. He was not at the main table.

Anyway, the entire time I am thinking about what a great photo op this is for the Chinese. Usually so many dignitaries don’t wait in line to meet a country’s President, especially not China’s. It’s classic China…kowtowing, face, etc.. I knew the Chinese must be eating it up. When they went to commentary, as expected, they couldn’t stop talking about how great they are and how everyone was waiting to meet Hu and how the Olympics, which haven’t even started, have been such a success. Yuck! Listening to these guys poison the beautiful English language with their twisted thoughts makes me sick.

Anyway, I’m so disappointed that Bush waited in that line. It really diminishes our brand. You’re the President, Mr. President, you shouldn’t wait in a line for anyone. Maybe they didn’t know about the line until they arrived and then, were left with no other choice but to wait. But if I were his handler, I would have pulled the President out of the line under the pretense of “official business”. I would have secluded him in a car or private place until everyone was finished and then, either make Hu wait for him, or allow him to go directly to the reception. So maybe it’s the President’s handler(s) who I should be most disappointed in for not 1. foreseeing this classic and obvious move of the Chinese and 2. not taking action once they saw it.

Hats off to Putin for preserving his country’s diginity in the face of face mongers. Surely his love of Russia and his training as a spook helped him handle today’s events like a master of statecraft. I hope my fellow Americans paid attention and learned one way to handle the Chinese. Surely cheesy smiles, tough handshakes and back slaps can’t be the only tools we have in our tool box? Preserve the brand, preserve the power, preserve the State!